Does AI Need Someone Like Bing Crosby ?

This is an interesting article about tape recording in the postwar 1940s:

https://spectrum.ieee.org/magnetophon-laugh-track

I actually listened to the AI voiced version of the article which was good.  Although magnetic recording must have appeared to be inevitable, I suspect that having someone like Bing Crosby both use and invest in it didn't hurt.  AI also seems inevitable but very few prominent people (aside from the technologists) are touting AI - perhaps AI also needs a champion like Crosby ?  (What am I saying ?  :)

I recall hearing that Bing was known as being casual in dress for his radio show but he apparently wasn't keen on doing two versions of the same show for the east and west coasts with hours in between.  I suppose another possible advantage of tape was that Bing didn't have to do the show in the evening, he could do it anytime during the week.  I knew about his investment in Ampex but had never heard about the origins of the laugh track before.  

Here's a different (longer) article on the subject and there are other articles referenced at the end:

https://ethw.org/First-Hand:Bing_Crosby_and_the_Recording_Revolution

Apparently disk recording was tried for the Crosby radio shows but found wanting.  They tried the magnetic tape for the first show of 1947 (it does sound pretty good to me):

https://archive.org/details/PhilcoRadioTime

Bing also asked if Bing Crosby Enterprises and Ampex could develop video tape for his TV shows.  This was in the early 1950s.  The fellow makes innocent requests (along with supplying $$) and later the engineering wizards provided him with the goods !  :)

I remember seeing these Ampex tape recorders in the Burstein-Applebee catalogs (this one is from 1970):

Just a little more that a kid with no job could afford - I settled for a Magnavox reel-to-reel from the local Boston Store :)  But the Ampex kinda resembles the original from Germany with the vertical controls and the horizontal tape mechanism.

Best Regards,
Chuck, WB9KZY
http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm